What a hideous time to start traveling. You can hardly keep your eyes open, waiting to board that damn airplane.
Boarding time, 5:25 am, came and went.
Finally, the gate agents admitted the interior emergency lights weren’t working. Unnngh, it’s a 6am flight from LAX – Chicago… if there’s an emergency, how much light do we need?
I know, I know, we gotta comply with the laws, but seriously, I’m gonna miss my connection!
When they changed the departure time to 7:15, it was over. My connection was toast… so they asked if I wanted to take the non-stop to Orlando, getting me in about the same time as when I was scheduled to arrive…
Um… what?
It was a middle seat, but hell, it meant not connecting through Charlotte, Newfoundland, Abu Dhabi or wherever and getting in at midnight (or sometime next week.
Mercifully, I was placed between two slender women who just wanted to sleep. So did I, having waited at the airport for five hours.
Uneventful flight… got to Orlando, went to baggage claim, and waited. Oooo, I have an AirTag in my bag, where’s my suitcase?
Still sitting by the aircraft. Really?? C’mon, people…
Suddenly there was someone telling us to go further down the terminal, at least two bag carousels away, and there was a bunch of whistles being blown.
Gods, what has some turkey done?
“I don’t know, lady, just move out of the area, please!”
Ten minutes later, they told us to either go up to level 3 or down to level 1. Still no word on what was going on. I was figuring there was maybe someone with a possible weapon or something.
Welp, rental cars are on level 1, why not make use of the time and get my car? My bag’s still hanging out by the plane.
The Budget counter was directly under where my bag was supposed to arrive, but the people at the counter had no idea there was anything happening. They weren’t concerned at all, so what the heck.
Overly enthusiastic young man, who didn’t seem to notice I was irritated by his statement: “No, sorry, you’re at the wrong place. You’re a Fast Break member so your car is already assigned and your contract will be in the stand by the cars!”
God forbid you put a sign up to say that…
Schlepped over to the rental booth in the parking garage.
Found the stand. No contract.
Blank look from the guy at the desk. “Are you sure?”
No, sweetheart, I just dragged my sorry self in here because I wanted to mess with you.
He goes out to inspect the stand with the contracts for all the other renters. Nope, none for me.
“Wait a minute.”
Sure, why not? My bags are out on the tarmac somewhere, and I’m evidently not going back to level 2 anytime soo no, what the hell.
He produces a contract and tells me my car is in space F-6. Super.
I go outside. The rows in front of me are Y and Z. Flippin’ marvelous.
I get to row R when the agent catches up to me. “Uh… row F is in the A terminal.”
I’m sorry, WHAT? You gave me a car in another terminal?
UNNNGH.
He smiled. “You just walk through the terminal and go to the third floor, and just walk across. It’s not far.”
Said he, not carrying both a purse and a 20 pound backpack. Not to mention a bad attitude due to lack of sleep.
Maybe the lunatic with the fake gun or whatever has been tackled and I can get to my… hey! The suitcase is in baggage claim, hooray! I’ll just coast by, grab it and I can finally get to my hotel…
“You can’t go there.”
“No, seriously, I just need to run up a floor…”
NO.
You can take the elevator to the third floor but there’s no admittance to the second floor.
UNNNGH. WHAT is going on??
“I don’t know.” (Yeah, you do, you just don’t want to tell me.)
Took the elevator to the third floor and was met by someone determined not to allow me to go across to Terminal A.
“No, mama, you can’t go there!’
Who are you calling mama? I just want to get to my rental car.
“Mama, you no go there.”
I think he had an idea of how my day was going. Also, I can get a wee bit grumpy when I’m not allowed to get where I need t go.
“Mama…” (I was getting really annoyed with this mama shit, he was at least as old as I was and he lowered his voice) “there’s a bomb. You doan need to go near a bomb.”
Okay, wait. There’s supposedly a BOMB on the second floor so they evacuated us to the first and third floors? What am I missing here? The rental counter was directly underneath…
Forget it. Sure, I’ll go stand in the road on the upper deck for a while. I have a choice?
They sent everyone outside to wait. And wait. I was in the unfortunate perimeter of a bunch of United ticketing agents who were fiiiiiiine about having an extendo smoke break.
Finally people started re-entering the terminal.
“Keep moving keep moving keep moving…” the guy in the uniform wasn’t having anyone near elevators or escalators.
Realizing I wasn’t getting my bag…ever… at least I could get to terminal A.
I finally find the car and get outta the damn airport. Went on a very circuitous route to a Target ten miles beyond my hotel… Siri doesn’t know how to pronounce “Cay” and tried sending me to Key West or something.
Given the lateness of the hour and my level of irritation and exhaustion, I shot around the store looking for the basics I’d need.
Got most things, hit a road bump at the underwear.
You know how the packs of knickers have a hole so you can touch the fabric to see how soft it is?
There’s a thief in Orlando who wears the same size panties as me. But instead of swiping an entire pack of six, she instead came up with the idea no one would notice if she yanked one pair outta every package she could find.
If you remove a pair of knicks through a small hole in the package, here’s a shocker… it’s noticeable.
Aaargh. I couldn’t bring myself to buy a package of should-be-six-but-now-five. I finally found a pack Little Miss Stickyfingers hadn’t seen but the undies were…
Ribbed.
How weird is that? My ass does not need a corset.
Lacking choices as I wasn’t about to attempt other styles of underpinnings (I don’t use dental floss etc), I took the lesser of two evils.
I do not like ribbed panties.
So now I have five more pairs of these ribbed knickers. What the heck do I do with them?
Examining Misadventures 